Rocket League's ranking system gets a tune-up
Never let it be said that Psyonix doesn't listen to its community, even if that community is as fickle as can be. I was all buoyed up at the ranking changes that accompanied Rocket League's second season—they promised to solve the huge swings in rank that were a product of using a rank-independent MMR to handle the matchmaking. With the introduction of broad skill tiers, the swings are certainly gone, but the problem is that there's no indication of how close you are to the next tier. You don't know whether you're getting any better till a promotion (or demotion) hits you out of the blue. In the next update, Psyonix hopes to give us a hint.
Each skill tier will be split into five divisions, each representing 20% progress towards the next division. In Division V, you're close to promotion.
Apparently (being forever average, I wouldn't know from experience) there's a problem within the current highest tier of Champion. It contains too broad a range of players, from those with Jedi-like reflexes through to people of mere human skill. The answer is three new tiers: Superstar will occupy the position Champion has now, topped by Champion, Super Champion and Grand Champion.
At present, Champion contains 0.91% of Rocket League players. After the patch, Grand Champion will hold just 0.07%. In addition, everyone in that Grand Champion tier will see their actual skill rating as opposed to a division to know how close they are to the leaderboards. Why this can't be extended to everyone beyond Psyonix's desire to "move away from the constant feedback of point gain and loss from individual matches" I couldn't tell you, but the extra gradation ought to prove a bit more compelling.
The patch will be released "as soon as we can".
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